By GREG HAYMES
Special to the Times Union
ALBANY – Two young musicians from Kentucky – a classically trained cellist and an introspective, quiet-voiced singer-songwriter – team up to write and record an album about the Appalachian Mountains and in particular, the environmentally destructive process of mountaintop removal for coal excavation.
It may not sound like the basis for an evening of wildly diverse and positively thrilling music. But if you were at WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio on Tuesday night, then you know that’s exactly what it was as cellist Ben Sollee and guitarist-banjoist Daniel Martin Moore stepped into the spotlight to showcase selections from their newly released collaborative CD, “Dear Companion.”
It wasn’t aged-in-the-hills, moonshine-fueled hillbilly music, nor was it the high-lonesome sound of ancient bluegrass and old-timey country music. This was thoroughly modern music, but rooted firmly in the mountains of Kentucky.
Bolstered by the excellent and versatile musicianship of electric guitarist-fiddler Cheyenne Marie and drummer-keyboardist Dan Dorff, Sollee and Moore launched the evening with a steamroller. “Something, Somewhere, Sometimes” came chugging ’round the bend, fuelled by Moore’s six-string banjo and the ever-energetic percussion of Dorff. Shifting gears, the quartet slid effortlessly into “My Wealth Comes Me,” a hymn-like ballad that seemed to expand to fill the entire theater, thanks to four-part vocal harmonies that were nothing short of glorious. And the rest of the evening was just as good.
Fingerpicking his cello, Sollee offered his uplifting song of faith and love, “Try,” and then slammed into “It’s Not Impossible,” strumming his cello to Dorff’s irresistable Latin carnivale street beat. Moore offered “Needn’t Say a Thing,” the subtle, samba-seasoned “The Old Measure” and a solo turn on the hushed, Nick Drake-like “Flyrock Blues,” the only song of the night to directly address the effects of mountaintop removal.
On her lone featured vocal, Marie nearly stole the show with her sultry rendition of Lil Green’s vintage barrelhouse blues “Romance in the Dark.” But the real scene-stealer turned out to be Dorff, who dazzled the crowd during Sollee’s “Bury Me With My Car” with a mindboggling, percussive display of clogging, stomping, clapping and slapping various parts of his body.
The keening strings of “Dear Companion” built into a frantic, swirl of sound, while “Sweet Marie” was intimate and languid. The foursome gathered around a single microphone for the a cappella “Jubilee, fueled by intricate, polyrhythmic hand-clapping. And they capped off the night with a playful, but eerie cover of Tom Wait’s irreverent blues, “Chocolate Jesus,” all pizzicato violin, plucked cello, handclaps, whistling and coffee-cup percussion.
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Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore’s “Dear Companion” Tour
When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 9
Where: The WAMC Performing Arts Studio, 339 Central Ave., Albany
Musical highlights: Dorff’s percussion dance during “Bury Me With My Car,” the glorious, hymn-like “My Wealth Comes to Me,” the keening “Dear Companion”
Length: 85 minutes
Upcoming: Next up on the WAMC concert calendar is the sparkling klezmer band Isle of Klezbos at 3 p.m. on Sunday.
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Greg Haymes is a freelance writer from Castleton-On-Hudson.